Conner Peripherals Inc says that its new manufacturing plant in Irvine, Scotland may well become a permanent facility, but it was established purely to meet the current demand levels that Conner’s other plants in Ivrea, San Jose, and Singapore couldn’t match: the company insists that the permanent facility will be based in Scotland, and acknowledges that Compaq, which accounts for 20% of Conner’s business and has a strong Scottish presence, did have an indirect influence on the decision to locate in Irvine; the first product to emerge from the Scottish plant will be 3.5 40Mb drive, but Conner doesn’t rule out 2.5 drives in the near future; 50% of the $700m business is international, with a strong Far Eastern base; at the formal announcement, it talked in terms of creating 1,500 jobs in Scotland over the next three years.
